A few years ago, I found myself on the phone with Dolores O’Riordan as the singer read her new lyrics to me. I worked at a music management company in New York, and my job that day was to transcribe eleven song lyrics for the liner notes of the Cranberries’ comeback album, Roses, their first release in more than ten years.

I remember her piercing Irish accent and honest words as we went through the songs line by line. After that call, I reread the lyrics of the band’s older albums that I grew up with and saw their meaning with new eyes.

A couple months later, at the Cranberries’ live show, her voice was so powerful it seemed to lift the audience off its feet. There’s a beautiful simplicity to the lyrics of the title track, “Roses”:

Life is no garden of roses More like a thistle in time Sailing past

When listening to music, it’s about a feeling: a rush of emotion. When reading lyrics — lines that tell a story or words that drop specific hints about a place or time — the artist’s intention starts to become clearer. As a songwriter, there’s an immersive moment when the words are flowing and piece together in the melody. That process makes me feel aligned with my true self.

In this second edition of Lyrics as Poetry, the theme is time: looking back at the past or being in the present, living in the unknown or wondering about the distant (or not-so-distant) future. Alone, as art on the page, are thirty-seven songwriters’ lyrics, as well as personal notes from each about their work. Additionally, twenty writers have contributed original entries spotlighting lyrics within that same theme, with drawings by designer Justin Page.

I hope you’ll find more than a few lyrics that resonate and spark a curiosity to listen to these songs and discover some new artists. Thanks for reading.

“Blue songs are like tattoos. You know I’ve been to sea before. Crown and anchor me, or let me sail away.”

Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” was always in the rotation at home, the song and album was one of my parents’ favorites. The lyrics have grown with me, as I’ve learned to see their intent more through fresh eyes year after year.

Reading the lyric sheet of an album I admire, like Blue, separated from the music, allows me to appreciate the creativity it takes to turn those words into a song. As a songwriter, lyrics are the foundation. So much time can be spent finding that perfect word or phrase. Or those words may just tumble out from somewhere deep in my subconscious.

The first edition of this new journal, Lyrics as Poetry, is a space where songwriters’ lyrics can be appreciated on their own aesthetic merit in print (and free from a hasty Google search to a cluttered lyrics web page). The forty-two featured artists are an eclectic set, loosely organized around the theme of space: openness and nature’s expanse, emotional resonance or physical distance (cosmic, too!). Alone, as art on the page, they’re lyrics as poetry.

The songwriters, who’ve all agreed to reprint their lyrics here, are joined by ten writers who’ve contributed original, personal entries spotlighting songs whose lyrics have resonated with them. I hope Lyrics as Poetry encourages you to listen to these artists with a new appreciation and perspective (all of the songs are recorded works), and hopefully discover a new favorite.